Titus 2:5

οἰκουργούς : workers at home. Field says that “the only authority for this word is Soranus of Ephesus, a medical writer, not earlier than the second century,” οἰκουργὸν καὶ καθέδριον διάγειν βίον; but the verb is found in Clem. Rom., ad Cor. i. 1, γυναιξίν … τὰ κατὰ τὸν οἶκον σεμνῶς οἰκουργεῖν ἐδιδάσκετε. οἰκουρούς, keepers at home, domum custodientes ([316] [317] 81) domus curam habentes (Vulg.), though constantly found in descriptions of virtuous women, is a less obviously stimulating epithet. Mothers who work at home usually find it a more absorbing pleasure than “going about from house to house” (1 Timothy 5:13). But the “worker at home” is under a temptation to be as unsparing of her household as of herself; and so St. Paul adds ἀγαθάς, benignas, kind (R.V.), rather than good (A.V.). For this force of ἀγαθός, see reff.

[316] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[317] Speculum

ἰδίοις : ἴδιος (See on 1 Timothy 3:4) is not emphatic: it is simply, their husbands. The ἴδιος merely differentiates husband from man.

ἵνα μὴ ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ βλασφημῆται : For λόγος, as used here, the more usual word is ὄνομα (from Isaiah 52:5). See reff. on 1 Timothy 6:1; and also James 2:7; Revelation 13:6; Revelation 16:9. ἡ ὁδὸς τῆς ἀληθείας, in 2 Peter 2:2, is equivalent to ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ here. The practical worth of a religion is not unfairly estimated by its effects on the lives of those who profess it. If the observed effect of the Gospel were to make women worse wives, it would not commend it to the heathen; “for the Greeks judge not of doctrines by the doctrine itself, but they make the life and conduct the test of the doctrines” (Chrys.). See note on 1 Timothy 5:14.